Stefano Pioli shed some light on the footballing principles that he wishes to instil at AC Milan and named three coaches that he watches a lot to gain inspiration from.
In the long interview he gave yesterday, Pioli discussed the study of the tactics of the best coaches around and admitted that he learns things from them, something that is perhaps a big clue as to why his tactical evolution at Milan has been so obvious.
“I watch many games, especially Guardiola, Klopp and Nagelsmann. Everyone has a fundamental characteristic; if you want to look at verticality, then you look at Klopp. The more modern one, where we are trying to go, for reading the spaces, which is not which player must go but which space he must occupy, then look at Guardiola. And so on,” he said.
MilanNews writes that for some time Pioli has also wanted to include all these innovations in his own football, starting mainly from that desire to immediately recover the ball in the opposite half of the field to keep the opponents away from Milan’s half.
It is why Milan have often dominated the rankings of statistics based on ball recoveries high up the pitch in Serie A, and this desire to press is summarised through the following: “Our idea is not to let the other teams play.”
Pioli wants total domination of games but admittedly it is some way away at present, yet the methodology of study and application of innovative tactics shows how the Milan coach is constantly evolving.
